Miss Marple TV Adaptations in Order: Every Episode and Film

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There is no single Miss Marple series to work through. There are two complete ones, made twenty years apart by two different broadcasters, with two very different ideas of who Jane Marple is — plus a run of 1960s films in which she behaves nothing like the woman in the books at all. If you have ever typed her name into a streaming search box and come back confused, that is why.

This autumn is a good moment to sort it out. 2026 is fifty years since Agatha Christie’s death, and the British Library opens a major Christie exhibition on 30 October 2026, so a winter of St Mary Mead is very much in season. Below is every Miss Marple TV adaptation in order, by series and by year, with the films at the end and an honest answer about which one to start with. Spoiler-free throughout.

Miss Marple TV Adaptations in Order: The Short Version

• Margaret Rutherford films — four MGM features, 1961–1964, plus a 1965 cameo.
• Angela Lansbury — The Mirror Crack’d, 1980, cinema release.
• Helen Hayes — two CBS TV films, 1983 and 1985.
• Joan Hickson — BBC, 1984–1992, twelve stories covering all twelve novels.
• Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie — ITV, 2004–2013, 23 episodes.

That is 35 television episodes and seven films, and only the BBC run sticks to the books from first to last. If you want the novels themselves first, our guide to the Miss Marple books in order covers all twelve plus the short stories.

BBC’s Miss Marple (1984–1992) with Joan Hickson, in Broadcast Order

The BBC filmed all twelve Marple novels and nothing else — no borrowed plots, no invented cases. It did not film them in publication order, though, which is why the list below jumps about. Hickson was in her late seventies when she started and eighty-six by the last one, and she plays Marple almost without expression: watchful, faintly amused, and far harder than she looks. Agatha Christie’s official site notes that Hickson appeared in a 1946 stage production of Appointment with Death; the much-repeated story that Christie afterwards wrote to her hoping she would one day play Miss Marple is told everywhere, but we have not seen the letter itself reproduced, so treat it as a lovely piece of folklore unless you find the original.

1. The Body in the Library (1984). Three parts over Christmas, and still the best introduction the series ever made: a blonde stranger in a spangled dress, dead on the Bantrys’ hearthrug, and a village that assumes the worst about everybody.
2. The Moving Finger (1985). Poison-pen letters in Lymstock. Marple arrives late and says little, which is exactly how the novel works too.
3. A Murder Is Announced (1985). A newspaper advertisement invites the village to a murder at Little Paddocks. Widely held to be the strongest hour of the whole run.
4. A Pocket Full of Rye (1985). Rye in a dead man’s pocket, a nursery rhyme running underneath, and one of Marple’s most personal cases.
5. The Murder at the Vicarage (1986). Broadcast as a single Christmas feature rather than a serial, and the only time the BBC filmed Marple’s first novel.
6. Sleeping Murder (1987). A young wife recognises a house she has never seen. Written in the 1940s, published last, aired here in the middle.
7. At Bertram’s Hotel (1987). A London hotel preserved like a museum piece of 1900, which is precisely what bothers Miss Marple about it.
8. Nemesis (1987). A dead man sends Marple on a coach tour of English gardens with no brief except to find an injustice.
9. 4.50 from Paddington (1987). Mrs McGillicuddy sees a murder through the window of a passing train, and nobody believes her but Jane Marple.
10. A Caribbean Mystery (1989). Marple on a sun-lounger in the West Indies, bored witless, until a retired major dies the night after telling her a story.
11. They Do It with Mirrors (1991). A rambling house turned over to a scheme for reforming young offenders, where almost everything is a sleight of hand.
12. The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (1992). A film star moves into Gossington Hall. Hickson’s twelfth and final outing, and the gentlest, saddest of them.

Most of these were serials of two or three parts rather than single films, and the BBC had a habit of saving Marple for Christmas — five of the twelve went out on or just after 25 December.

Agatha Christie’s Marple (ITV, 2004–2013), in Order

ITV’s revival is a different animal: warmer, brighter, cast with half of British television, and much freer with the source. It ran to 23 episodes across six series. Twelve of them are the twelve Marple novels. Two are built out of her short stories. The other nine are Christie novels that never had Miss Marple in them at all — the scriptwriters simply wrote her in, which remains the single thing Christie purists cannot forgive it for.

Series 1–3: Geraldine McEwan (2004–2009)

1. The Body in the Library (2004).
2. The Murder at the Vicarage (2004).
3. 4.50 from Paddington (2004).
4. A Murder Is Announced (2005).
5. Sleeping Murder (2006).
6. The Moving Finger (2006).
7. By the Pricking of My Thumbs (2006). — originally a Tommy and Tuppence novel
8. The Sittaford Mystery (2006). — no Marple in the novel
9. At Bertram’s Hotel (2007).
10. Ordeal by Innocence (2007). — no Marple in the novel
11. Towards Zero (2008). — no Marple in the novel
12. Nemesis (2009).

Series 4–6: Julia McKenzie (2009–2013)

McEwan stepped down after Nemesis and Julia McKenzie took over from A Pocket Full of Rye onwards, playing Marple noticeably straighter.

13. A Pocket Full of Rye (2009).
14. Murder Is Easy (2009). — no Marple in the novel
15. They Do It with Mirrors (2010).
16. The Pale Horse (2010). — no Marple in the novel
17. The Secret of Chimneys (2010). — no Marple in the novel
18. The Blue Geranium (2010). — expanded from a Marple short story
19. The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (2011).
20. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (2011). — no Marple in the novel; billed as a series 4 episode but held back to 2011
21. A Caribbean Mystery (2013).
22. Greenshaw’s Folly (2013). — built from Marple short stories
23. Endless Night (2013). — no Marple in the novel

One warning if you are tracking this by series number: ITV’s numbering and the UK air dates do not line up. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? was produced and billed as part of series 4 but was not broadcast until 2011, after the whole of series 5. The list above is in broadcast order, which is the order you will meet them in on most streaming services.

Miss Marple Films and TV Movies in Order

1. Murder, She Said (1961). Margaret Rutherford’s first outing, from 4.50 from Paddington, and the closest of her four to an actual Christie plot.
2. Murder at the Gallop (1963). Adapted from After the Funeral — a Hercule Poirot novel, with Marple swapped in for Poirot.
3. Murder Most Foul (1964). Loosely from Mrs McGinty’s Dead, also a Poirot novel, also reassigned.
4. Murder Ahoy! (1964). Not from a Christie novel at all but an original screenplay, borrowing a few elements from They Do It with Mirrors. Released in the US in 1964 and in the UK the following year, so you will see both years quoted.
5. The Alphabet Murders (1965). A Poirot film, in which Rutherford turns up briefly as Marple for the joke.
6. The Mirror Crack’d (1980). Angela Lansbury as Marple, five years before she began playing Jessica Fletcher — the role that made her the American Marple by other means.
7. A Caribbean Mystery (1983). Helen Hayes for CBS, transplanting Marple into American television.
8. Murder with Mirrors (1985). Hayes again, from They Do It with Mirrors, under its American title.

Christie reportedly disliked the Rutherford films, and it is easy to see why: Rutherford is wonderful and is playing somebody else entirely — a boisterous, fencing, horse-riding busybody rather than a quiet old lady who listens. Watch them as 1960s comedies and they are a delight. Watch them as Christie and they are not.

Which Miss Marple Adaptation Should You Watch First?

• Start with the BBC’s A Murder Is Announced (1985) if you want to know in ninety minutes whether this genre is for you. It is the best script of the twelve and Hickson is already perfect in it.
• Start with The Body in the Library (1984) if you would rather go in broadcast order from the beginning.
• Start with ITV’s The Murder at the Vicarage (2004) if you want colour, a big cast and a lighter touch, and do not mind liberties.
• Skip the ITV non-Marple episodes on a first pass — the nine marked above — and come back to them as Christie adaptations rather than as Marple.
• Save the Rutherford films for last, once you know the real Marple well enough to enjoy the joke.

If screen cozies are what you are really after, our round-up of Hallmark mystery movies based on books covers the modern equivalent, and Murder, She Wrote in order is the obvious next stop for anyone who has just watched Angela Lansbury do this twice.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Miss Marple TV episodes are there?

Thirty-five across the two main series: twelve BBC stories with Joan Hickson (1984–1992) and 23 ITV episodes with Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie (2004–2013). Several of the BBC ones were serialised over two or three nights, so some listings count them as 21 or more separate parts.

Do I need to watch the Miss Marple adaptations in order?

No. Every case stands alone and Marple herself never changes, so you can start anywhere. The only sequence worth keeping is A Caribbean Mystery before Nemesis, since the second grows directly out of the first, and Sleeping Murder last if you are also reading the books.

Which Miss Marple series is the most faithful to the books?

The BBC series with Joan Hickson, comfortably. It adapted the twelve novels and only the twelve novels, kept their period and their endings, and is the version most Christie readers point newcomers towards.

Why do some ITV Marple episodes come from books without Miss Marple in them?

Because there are only twelve Marple novels, and ITV wanted six series. After exhausting them the production turned to other Christie titles — Ordeal by Innocence, Towards Zero, The Pale Horse and the rest — and wrote Marple into the role of whichever detective or amateur was there originally. The mysteries are still Christie’s; the sleuth is not.

One Last Thing

Fifty years after Christie’s death, St Mary Mead has been filmed more often than almost any village in England, and the quiet woman at the end of the lane has outlasted every actress who played her. If you are starting the Hickson twelve this winter, that is twelve very good evenings ahead of you.

We post a cozy mystery series in reading order every week, plus new releases and seasonal reading lists. Come and join us on our Facebook Page and tell us which Miss Marple you grew up with.

Sources

Film titles, premiere dates and credited source novels on this page follow Wikipedia’s Miss Marple adaptations section and the Agatha Christie estate’s own story pages. Where no source novel is credited we say so rather than guess from a matching title. If anything here is out of date, tell us in the comments and we will fix it.